Dear Eric: I met my wife about 20 years ago. Her three kids were in their teens.
The oldest, a daughter, has always been needy and played the victim. Over the years, we have given her a car; driven her to work before she got her license; gave her a living room set when she ran off and got married; drove three states away to pick her up when that husband got thrown in jail; bailed her out of jail when she and her second husband got thrown in jail; let her live with us rent free. The list goes on.
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She married a third time, to a decent man, and had two kids. They don’t have the same lifestyle we do, but they seem happy.
About a year ago, she decided to cut us out of her life, no explanation other than she was going to do it. It seems to me, correct me if I’m wrong, to be a sort of trend now.
While I’m OK with it, this has hurt my wife more than I can describe. I feel so absolutely awful for my wife; her heartbreak has broken my heart. Not only am I heartbroken for my wife, I am beyond angry at her daughter.
I’ve thought that maybe I could reach out and try to help smooth things over, but the longer it’s lasted, the angrier I’ve become, and I don’t think I could make things better.
Any directional advice would be greatly appreciated.
– Two Broken Hearts
Dear Hearts: I’m so sorry for the pain your wife is experiencing and the pain that’s impacting your whole family system.
Because you’re, rightfully, feeling so much emotion right now, it may be more effective for someone else to reach out to your wife’s daughter – one of the other children perhaps – to get some information about what she’s thinking and how you might approach reconciliation.
This kind of break doesn’t come out of nowhere, although often it feels that way to one or both sides. This isn’t to say that your wife is at fault. That’s not for me to adjudicate. Rather, the roots of the problem are likely deep and complex. They also likely predate the time that you joined the family.
None of this makes the situation unsolvable. But your wife’s daughter has to be willing to come to the table and communicate.
Until such time, the best thing you can do for your wife is to help her to process. Consider asking her if she’d join you in family therapy, a space where she can talk about the heartbreak she’s feeling and, likely, the anger. This won’t make it all go away, but it will better prepare her to have a productive conversation with her daughter one day.
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Dear Eric: Regarding the person who wrote to you about forgetting appointments due to memory issues (“Foiled Again”), I too started experiencing this, especially after I retired and wasn’t facing a screen displaying an e-calendar all day.
After a few embarrassing incidents, I realized that if I didn’t write things down, they likely wouldn’t happen. I decided to buy a diary/calendar book.
I made it fun by looking at a lot of different styles. The most important characteristics were that it was attractive, fun to write in, and small enough to fit in my bag. I splurged and chose a 5-by-7 black leather book with gold embossed designs on the cover, stickers, tabs for each month, pages showing full months as well as individual days, and three bookmarks. I use only pencil in the book because things change a lot!
I keep it close at all times, not only to write down appointments, but also to help with scheduling recurring activities (when was my last hair or dentist appointment?) and to remind myself of upcoming events. On days when I don’t have anything scheduled, I like to note whatever activities took place that day: grocery, bank, post office, etc.
The diary has been invaluable and fun to use, so there is no shame in my game! We all need a little help now and again.
– 66 in California
Dear 66: A paper calendar is a great idea; I particularly like that you did the work to make it visually appealing.
Others suggested depending on reminders and calendar features on a smartphone (there’s even a feature on most phones that will show a reminder when you return to a location, like a hair salon). Another idea: always keeping the same day/time for specific appointments.
All great. The takeaway is that sometimes the memory doesn’t work like we want and so it behooves us all to find the solutions that work for us.
Send questions to R. Eric Thomas at [email protected] or P.O. Box 22474, Philadelphia, PA 19110. Follow him on Instagram @oureric and sign up for his weekly newsletter at rericthomas.com.
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